CBC Health News

Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.

Health Minister Adriana LaGrange is alleging the former CEO of Alberta Health Services was unwilling to implement the government’s plan to break up the health authority, and made “incendiary and inaccurate allegations about political intrigue and impropriety” before she was fired in January. 

Saskatoon's Prairie Harm Reduction is asking for the province to get boots on the ground after a week with dozens of overdoses.

A confidential memo from the head of the Alberta Medical Association says government seeks cuts to more than 800 physician billing codes to save $400 million. The health ministry says government spending on physicians has risen by $1 billion since 2022-23

From finishing high school to caring for patients in the hospital, here’s how five people navigated the beginning of the pandemic.

The Homalco Nation is the third Indigenous group on Vancouver Island to declare a state of emergency due to the toxic drug crisis and has joined calls for federal and provincial government leaders to take urgent action and provide resources to address these issues.

Ontario is seeing a massive surge in measles cases as an ongoing outbreak spreads among unvaccinated people. Public Health Ontario is reporting 372 total cases since an outbreak began in late October, a jump of 195 cases since the agency's last report on Feb. 27.

Advocacy organizations won't appeal an Ontario court's decision to dismiss their Charter challenge of the province's long-term care (LTC) law, which allows hospitals to move people into homes they didn't choose or be charged $400 a day to remain in hospital.

After CBC Toronto was first to report on Dr. Esther Park's office where Toronto Public Health said earlier this month that cleaning protocols were not being followed, several patients have come forward to share their negative encounters with Park, many expressing their frustration that their voices weren't being heard.

The guidance from Dr. Daniel Vigo, B.C.'s first chief scientific adviser for psychiatry, is aimed at helping clinicians and others decide when involuntary admission is appropriate for people with both mental-health and substance-use disorders.

Dr. Alex Wong became well-known during the COVID-19 pandemic, doing multiple interviews locally and nationally, but his work led to his body breaking down.

Two people died a little over an hour apart in Victoria on Monday, Victoria police and the B.C. Coroners Service have confirmed

The province says it is also celebrating the recruitment of 1,001 new family doctors in two years under a new payment model.

Many men experiment with testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) to improve their energy and strength, with some just getting it online, says a London, Ont., urologist who stresses getting medical guidance. "The use of hormone therapy, in my mind, is really tied to reinforcing some of the ideas of masculinity that we have," says a researcher who teaches at Western University.

Measles is making a comeback in Quebec. From December to March, at least 31 cases were reported and experts point to one cause — declining vaccination rates.

Here's what you need to know about hantavirus, the rodent-borne pathogen blamed for the death of Betsy Arakawa, the wife of actor Gene Hackman. Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome has killed at least 34 people in Canada over the past three decades.

Conversations are happening in Nova Scotia about developing the first midwifery education program east of Quebec.

Since catching COVID-19 in 2022, Nathanael Rafinejad, 29, can't stand longer than a few seconds at a time and has relied on a wheelchair. They are one of thousands of Quebecers with long COVID, a chronic condition that can prevent once healthy, active people from functioning as they once did.

Ontario's system to support people with developmental disabilities is "on the verge of collapse" because of low funding, according to several agencies that have formed a coalition to call on the provincial government to act. 

Stem cell researchers are trying to reverse a deadly genetic variant that's plagued families in this province for generations. Those who carry the mutation say the medical research is straight out of science fiction.